Housecat Endoscopy

Housecat endoscopy...after a housecat has had numerous bouts of
diarrhea and vomiting over a period of just a few months it is typical
to take your little feline to the vet. After a thorough examination if
your vet doesn't find anything obviously wrong, it is common to suggest
that taking a tissue sample from your cat's stomach and intestines may
help illuminate the cause of the problem.

While you may think that
exploratory surgery is involved, nowadays, a clinician experienced in
housecat endoscopy can peer inside your cat and take tissue samples
without an invasive surgical procedure.

The clinician inserts an
endoscope (a light-transmitting tube with a lens on the end) through
your cat's mouth and into its stomach to view the organ's interior and
remove and examine snippets of tissue (biopsy). Housecat endoscopy is
used to diagnose many internal ailments ...even respiratory problems.
Consider this internal surveillance.

Housecat endoscopy uses a scope to peek into the housecat stomach
that has a long, flexible tube with a lens in the tip. The vet uses a
control knob in the hand-piece of the endoscope to maneuver the lensed
tip to view a wide area. The tube section consists of multiple
channels. One or two channels contain fiber bundles that transmit light
and one channel contains the lens that sends images back to the vet.

A
separate channel is used to withdraw stomach fluid or to pass
instruments such as biopsy forceps or cytology brushes (for taking
biopsy samples) or grasping forceps (to remove foreign objects) to the
end of the scope. Another channel is used to carry air to expand the
stomach for easier viewing or to carry water for washing away mucus or
other material obscuring the view.

Housecat endoscopy requires putting the feline patient under general
anesthesia. Once the housecat is well into "dreamland," the technician
introduces the scope through an appropriate natural opening such as the
mouth or anus. If the signs of your cat's illness point to
gastrointestinal (GI) distress he may insert the tube through your cat's
mouth and into its stomach. Once he has maneuvered the scope into the
organ under surveillance, he can begin to survey inside the cat.

By
noting the texture and color of organ tissues, the vet obtains clues
that will help diagnose the problem. Also, by using accessory
attachments, the vet can take tissue samples for later laboratory
analysis or even remove a foreign object ....such as a needle...from
inside your cat.

While housecat endoscopy has become more common, don't be
surprised if your vet doesn't do the procedure. The instruments not
only are expensive, they require a significant amount of practice to
become adept in their use.

So, many vets either refer patients to a
hospital staffed with an endoscopist or enlist the services of a mobile
endoscopist who comes to the veterinary clinic with the equipment and
performs the procedure.

Veterinarians have become skilled at scoping several regions of your cat's body. Vets have discovered they get the best views of the stomach with the feline patient lying on its left side. In bronchoscopy the vet takes a view of the airways, while rhinoscopy involves peeking into the nose, and cystoscopy
into the bladder. Vets can also examine a cat's esophagus and colon
endoscopically.

The most common is to check the GI tract if a house cat
shows signs of GI distress such as vomiting and diarrhea, weight loss,
and appetite loss. The vet will begin to gather information by
performing a physical examination and taking blood, urine, and stool
samples for lab analysis. But if the results don't conclusively point
to one disorder, the vet may take x-rays and possibly an ultrasound of
the cat's abdomen, looking for structural abnormalities.

But sometimes, even these images don't provide enough information to form a clear picture of what's ailing the feline patient. An example ....inflammatory bowel disease(IBD),
one of the most common causes of chronic vomiting and diarrhea in a
housecat ...can only be diagnosed by analyzing tissue samples taken from
the stomach and small intestine.

Most of the time, they go into the
stomach and small intestine with doing the housecat endoscopy to get
biopsy samples, usually suspecting something like IBD. Typically, 7-10
samples are taken from various sites.

The vet uses biopsy forceps to
grasp a very small snippet ...only about 2-3 millimeters in
diameter...of tissue from the stomach lining (biopsy sample). If the
biopsy sample is taken surgically, it includes all the layers of the
stomach tissue (full thickness biopsy). The biopsy results and the vet's
visual assessment of the organ, combined with previous test results,
usually enable the vet to make a diagnosis and begin appropriate
treatment.

There are a few rare instances when an endoscopic analysis doesn't
provide enough information for the vet to make a diagnosis. For
example, diseased tissue can be buried deep in an organ wall and won't
come to light through an endoscopic tissue sample, which removes only
surface tissue.

In such cases, the vet will likely recommend surgery so
he or she can take tissue samples that include all tissue layers of the
organ. There are other times when the vet may diagnose your cat's
illness with housecat endoscopy but will need to treat the problem
surgically.

A housecat poses special endoscopic challenges because of
their small size. Some cats are particularly small and you can't pass
the scope into the upper reaches of their small intestines. However,
housecat endoscopy has saved many fortunate feline patients from the
stress of undergoing a surgical procedure. Plus, the technique has
enabled vets to reach an accurate diagnosis quickly so the ill housecat
can start down the recovery path.